[Isis-users] ABCD version 2.0 - English announcement

[spinaker]

*Versión de este mensaje en español se envía por separado*
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Dear colleagues,

The ABCD Suite v.1 was launched in December 2009, and as you know by 
your participation in this list, tens of institutes have installed it 
either partially or completely, as a public application or as an 
internal development within the institution.

During these 2 years several corrections and minor improvements on ABCD 
have been published as 'patches', evaluation workshops have been held, 
trainings have been organized in many countries, both in presential 
format and online.

Anyway, the technology keeps advancing as well as the needs, so we 
understand that actualization of ABCD is necessary in a way that 
maintains compatibility with the technology, responding to new needs and 
adding new functions.

We want to announce that we are about to launch an actualisation and 
updating project for ABCD, aiming to publish a version 2.0 mid 2012. We 
have already engaged about 10 professional experts of this list along 
with financial input from four institutes for some specialized 
programming assignments.

But, since the project is large, we will again need the contribution and 
co-operation of all of you. As we did in the year 2009, when more than 
80 persons from 21 countries have worked together very successfull, now 
we are calling to combine forces for the version 2.0 of ABCD.

Workplan
----------
In this month March we will start registering volunteers who can spend 
part of their time to work on different tasks. We describe the elements 
needed under here.
In a few days we will explain how to communicate and register for these 
activities, which will be divided in groups with a co-ordinator for each.

Some of the tasks envisaged are :
  - Test the different modules in either Windows or Linux
  - Translation of messages for the new functions in several languages
  - Update online help-pages (or write new ones) to cover the new 
elements or work out examples
  - Translate these pages from Spanish or English into all four 
languages: Spanish, English, French, Portugese
  - Review the manuals and update them
  - We need tow or three programmers with experience in PHP, JavaScript 
and CSS to review and debug the new features of ABCD
  - We need one or two experts in Java

We invite everybody who has installed ABCD, who is working with one or 
more of its modules and have had problems, to send us suggestions and 
reports on problems etc.
Please don't send these to the list, we want to provide specific 
channels for this information.

Preliminary list of improvements for ABCD v2.0
----------------------------------------------
- Compatibility with PHP 5.3 or higher
- Change all calls to IsisScript by direct CISIS-calls
- Complete the Central Loans module : reservations, online 
user-interaction and debugging on problems reported (e.g. days/hour loans)
- Finish the options of using the separate copies database or the copies 
kept in the catalog
- Thesaurus management module (new feature)
- new OAI module (replacing the old one which had problems)
- Digital Library feature (new feature)
- Add a 'traffic-control' function for the Update Inverted File function 
to avoid locks (new function)
- Debugging other reported problems
- Simplify MARC-worksheets and formats
- Replace ABCD Site v.4.1 with version BVS Site 5.1.11
- Finish reporting module
- Add SDI function (new)
- Update the help documentation and translations
- Update SeCS-Web and finish documentation
- Mirror sites and servers for download and distribution of ABCD
- EmpWeb - finish some pending issues
- etc, etc, etc

- THIS LIST IS OPEN FOR YOUR SUGGESTIONS !
  Don't send them now, soon we will inform you about this in a more 
organized way.

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Time schedule
-------------

There will be a mid-term evaluation workshop for experts, end of May in 
Antwerp
(participation only by invitation, participants are expected to pay 
their own expenses)

Delivery of beta version in July 2012
Delivery of version 2.0 end of August 2012


Note:
If an institute wishes to contribute with programming/coding time or 
financial input, allow us to co-ordinate. Send an e-mail to our personal 
addresses to Egbert de Smet and Ernesto Spinak.
---------------------------
Regards,
Egbert & Ernesto

-- 
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   | |  Ernesto Spinak                | |
   | |  spinaker at adinet.com.uy        | |
   | |  Montevideo, Uruguay           | |
   | |  tel/fax  (598) 2622-3352      | |
   | |  celular  (598) 99612238      | |
  =[=]================================[=]=
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